Guild Wars 2

kitten everything else, Spite now has life steal on Condition Damage.

Screen shot from ready up.

Spite: Parasitic Contagion – A % of your condition damage heals you (5%, not affected by healing power)

Curses: Path of Corruption – Dark Path now additionally converts 2 boons into conditions.

Death Magic: Unholy Sanctuary - Regenerate health while you are in death shroud (this is the only method currently to physically regen your HP while in death shroud – it is same as healing from regen, will scale with your healing power)

Blood Magic: Unholy Martyr – Draw 1 condition from allies every 3 seconds while in death shroud. Each time you draw a condition, gain 5% life force.

Soul Reaping: Renewing Blast – Life Blast heal allies that it passes through.

Some pretty interesting changes. Parasitic Contagion will probably keep me in spite after the dumbfire nerf once I have all the specifics.

Meh ideas overall except for parasitic contagion. My 30/30/0/10/0 build will probably just switch out dhuumfire for it. Hopefully really good sustain.

I am however interested in Path of Corruption: what does/will aegis convert to?

Steelxsoldier.6512:

Meh ideas overall except for parasitic contagion. My 30/30/0/10/0 build will probably just switch out dhuumfire for it. Hopefully really good sustain.

I am however interested in Path of Corruption: what does/will aegis convert to?

Same as it does now probably, burning.

I am looking at things a bit more positive now, but we shall have to see how things will work out.

I do see the development of necromancer to go the way most necros would like to see it go, sustain wise.

I think theyve permently given up and made spite the main condition tree, and condtion necro the only real necro option. Hope they start working on reworking the spite minors as theyre equaly bad as the ones from death magic

Just some additional stuff from the previous slide too:

• Reanimator: This trait has been merged into Death Nova
• New Adept Minor Trait – Armored Shroud: Gain bonus toughness while in death shroud.
• Protection of the Horde: This trait has been merged into Flesh of the Master
• New Master Minor Trait – Soul Comprehension: Your passive life force generation from nearby deaths is increased
• Vampiric Master: Reduced the effectiveness of this trait by 10%. The healing portion of this trait will now scale with the necro’s healing power stat
• Training of the Master: Reduced the damage increase to minions fro 30% to 25%
• Dhuumfire: This trait has been changed so that it will make Life Blast inflict 3 seconds of burning with a 10 seconds recharge. This trait is no longer split.
• Bug fixes!

Wouldn’t it have been better for Reanimator to be merged with Minion Mastery instead? Merging into Death Nova just seems…awkward. Still, at least they’re finally doing something about it.

I’m a bit let down with the Spite and Curses GMs. Parasitic Contagion seems as a good alternative to Dhuumfire, but Path of Corruption seems … underwhelming.
Even though that could mean that they increased the projectile speed.

DM seems better now as a traitline and I’ll be tinkering with DM and BM in order to create a zerg surfing build for WvW.

Renewing Blast seems like a nice buff to healing necros even though I never played one and therefore can’t say much about it.

Too bad there is no cool new GM for power necromancers.

Fear now an interrupt!

Breaking news: Fear is now an interrupt!

OMG, my necro will become a tank from hell!!!

THANK YOU ANET

I think path of corruption sounds pretty awesome, at least for a dueling type build. I’ll probably check that out a little bit for funsies.

Not sure what the spite GM really does at the moment, or how powerful the heals are. The death magic and blood magic ones are interesting. Not sure I will use them, but they are certainly interesting. SR one doesn’t impress me but I’m sure it has it’s uses, too.

Unholy martyr is op as hell. 25% life force every 3 seconds in wvw. That along with unholy sanctuary will be really strong.

Not super-stoked about the Death Magic redesign but I LOVE the new Spite and Curses traits! Might actually have to skip Master of Terror to get these 2!

zapv.8051:

Unholy martyr is op as hell. 25% life force every 3 seconds in wvw. That along with unholy sanctuary will be really strong.

From what I understand it’s just 1 condition per 3 seconds, not 1 condition per ally every 3 seconds.
As you lose 4% per second that realization made me a sad necro. Still a buff to DS uptime.

Can someone try to explain why they keep forcing condition traits to Spite? Power necros are getting worse and worse, sadly. We’ll probably be the weakest PvE class overall due to our low damage from power specs as well as condition builds having big issues in PvE that I won’t get into. (these concerns are mostly for high end pve such as fracs etc, not open pve.. anything goes there)

Looks solid otherwise! Excited about playing a Necro in PvP though

I’m legitimately going to try a 0/0/30/30/10 build once this patch hits. Kind of excited, to be honest.

And I think Parasitic Contagion is also really cool.

EDIT – Spite is the Condition Duration line. Conditions are very important to a Power build for Necros, and Condition builds also like the Condition Duration.

Do you want the Condi Duration line to not have any Condi benefits? That would seem like a terrible idea.

Plus, we have Close to Death in Spite. I have a hard time thinking of something I’d rather have for my Power Necro in the Spite line.

CastIron.7364:

zapv.8051:

Unholy martyr is op as hell. 25% life force every 3 seconds in wvw. That along with unholy sanctuary will be really strong.

From what I understand it’s just 1 condition per 3 seconds, not 1 condition per ally every 3 seconds.
As you lose 4% per second that realization made me a sad necro. Still a buff to DS uptime.

Well if you take this trait you will probably also take vital presistance so it is only 2% per second.

What ?! fear is now a interrupt ? SERIOUSLY ?

They could of given a decent power necro trait in curses. But nope. Everything is disappointing.

Spoj The Second.7680:

They could of given a decent power necro trait in curses. But nope. Everything is disappointing.

Having the additional boon stripping actually isn’t bad for a PvP Power Necro, but like Withering Precision, just seems PvP-based.

So for PvE, I see your point.

Last i checked necro needed the most help in pve and wasnt too bad in pvp. Really dont understand the direction the devs are going. Also all the new stuff seems to be encouraging boring afk heal support playstyles and nerfing dps. Its depressing.

Spoj The Second.7680:

Last i checked necro needed the most help in pve and wasnt too bad in pvp. Really dont understand the direction the devs are going. Also all the new stuff seems to be encouraging boring afk heal support playstyles and nerfing dps. Its depressing.

Well people often complain that dps is king and you can die in mere seconds, so I’m not sure that propping up alternative styles is a bad thing. Plus, necros got a very active healing hybrid trait in the new SR 13.

I’m holding out hope that we will see changes to PvE itself, that will resolve the issues. Maybe making it considerably more difficult so that pure dps isn’t all the things that it currently is.

Yami.9035:

What ?! fear is now a interrupt ? SERIOUSLY ?

Bug Fix

Spoj The Second.7680:

Last i checked necro needed the most help in pve and wasnt too bad in pvp. Really dont understand the direction the devs are going. Also all the new stuff seems to be encouraging boring afk heal support playstyles and nerfing dps. Its depressing.

Eh, ask PvP Necros around here how Necros are in PvP and they’ll probably comment on how they are subpar. Ask non-Necros how Necros are in PvP and they’ll complain about the imbalance and sustain.

The only Necros I truly feel for are high-end Fractal Necros, which I know includes you, so I’m sorry. However, DPS has been pretty insane for a while, and having supportive healing builds pop up might do interesting things to the game. I’m for it.

I think you can now provide massive support with a 0/0/10/30/30. Or more appropriately a 0/0/2/6/6 with protection on wells, transfusion, well cooldowns and the new trait, plus the new SR 13 as well. Lots of heals there. Could put the last 2 curses for targeted wells for WvW, too. Lots of potential for a solid bunker, there. Still one that could be focused down, but more of a support bunker than we ever had before.

Thing is necro dps isnt all that insane. And anets maths is completely wrong. Its going to be more than a 30% nerf to our damage (all classes).

I thought it was 30% damage nerf to crits? That isn’t all the dps though.

Other than parasitic contagion these strike me as very weak for grand master traits. Guess I’ll be sticking to my mesmer.

Its kinda bugging me that after this update, we will have 4 traits that affect only lifeblast, yet lifeblast is so terrible clumsy and predictable..

The idea for the Spite trait is pretty cool. I just dont understand why a healing based grandmaster trait in our power line doesn’t scale with healing power if we even get healing power for free through our minor in the same line. But i really do like the split up, 1 GM for Power, 1 for Hybrid, 1 for kinda tanky sustain attrition style..

Curses GM is okay. Can have some uses in pvp or wvw. Also a small niche use for PVE for those bosses or enemy that spam protection to increase dps.

The DM trait is not that good i guess… it scales with healing power so might be good for bunkering or high survivability in wvw combined with the new bm trait.

And the sr trait.. i think the trait itself is pretty strong but the problem is the way the lifeblast projectile works. weird angles. unless in a wvw zerg it wont hit that much allies unless they stand still for a long time.. which isnt the case in pvp at all, and maybe only in stacking scenarios in pve..

We need more torment and siphons working trough DS..

Roe.3679:

I thought it was 30% damage nerf to crits? That isn’t all the dps though.

10% to crit DMG not 30

Heartlust.6140:

Roe.3679:

I thought it was 30% damage nerf to crits? That isn’t all the dps though.

10% to crit DMG not 30

I know that it’s 10% to overall DPS, so since non-crits are unchanged yet part of that equation, I’m fairly certain you’re incorrect. I think maximum crit damage from a full zerker is nerfed by 30%, for a 10% overall DPS change.

I made a necro to try out dhuumfire and then they decide to nerf it. These new traits are silly, I won’t be trying any of them out.

These traits except the SR one seem pretty interesting at the very least.

Unholy Martyr Life Force Degeneration Math*

Unholy Martyr alone (assume condition draw does not occur until after 3 seconds in DS have elapsed)

• Lose 12% Life Force through natural degen over 3 seconds (4% per second)

• Gain 5% Life Force from Unholy Martyr at the 3 second mark.

• Net loss of 7% Life Force over 3 seconds (compared to 12% loss if not traiting Unholy Martyr)

Unholy Martyr alone (assume condition draw occurs immediately on entering DS and then every 3 seconds thereafter)

• Lose 12% Life Force through natural degen over 3 seconds (4% per second)

• Gain 5% Life Force from Unholy Martyr on entering DS.

• Gain 5% Life Force from Unholy Martyr at the 3 second mark.

• Net loss of 2% Life Force over 3 seconds (compared to 12% loss if not traiting Unholy Martyr)

Unholy Martyr + Vital Persistence (assume condition draw does not occur until after 3 seconds in DS have elapsed)

• Lose 6% Life Force through natural degen over 3 seconds (2% per second)

• Gain 5% Life Force from Unholy Martyr at the 3 second mark.

• Net loss of 1% Life Force over 3 seconds (compared to 6% loss if not traiting Unholy Martyr)

Unholy Martyr + Vital Persistence (assume condition draw occurs immediately on entering DS and then every 3 seconds thereafter)

• Lose 6% Life Force through natural degen over 3 seconds (2% per second)

• Gain 5% Life Force from Unholy Martyr on entering DS.

• Gain 5% Life Force from Unholy Martyr at the 3 second mark.

• Net gain of 4% Life Force over 3 seconds (compared to 6% loss if not traiting Unholy Martyr)

* All calculations assume the new GM Trait will draw one condition maximum every 3 seconds rather than one condition per allie every 3 seconds. Also assumes there are allies nearby with conditions to draw.

Thanks Kraag Deadsoul.2789 for doing the math. It won’t change my current staff build, but at least we will finally have an option to bunker down.

Looks like this balance patch will try to give PvP and WvW necros some more build diversity., which is fine. Hope they will focus on our strenghtening our power in PVE next time (looking at you, axe and dagger)

Finally the attrition class gets some attrition. I just hope they wont need as long to make Power Necro in PvP viable.

Seems like they REALLY want us to use Death Shroud a lot. I think this may open up some new build options, though it wont really benefit my current playstyle much, or PvE at all… heh.

Zyphent.2967:

Seems like they REALLY want us to use Death Shroud a lot. I think this may open up some new build options, though it wont really benefit my current playstyle much, or PvE at all… heh.

While Blood Magic continues to languish. Maybe in another 19 months the vampires will finally get some love.

My PvE Powermancer just choked on a jagged horror and died.

I’ve never understood the, “Screw ANet. Uninstalled.” mentality until this round of patching. What a joke.

Well, at least I can bunker indefinitely and dish out…well, at least I can bunker indefinitely.

Did they make any mention of how well Renewing Blast would scale with Healing Power? I would imagine that for a 30 point investment when stability is right there, it would have to be rather hefty scaling.

can anyone point me out to the notes of the rest of the classes please?

Mordar.4286:

can anyone point me out to the notes of the rest of the classes please?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/210opr/ready_up_ep8_developer_livestream_notes/

Actually just by bumping up vampiric from 25-41 and adding a 0.01 power scaling to its current 0.02, removing the on manual exit DS cd (but bumping up base to like 13 or 14) and making FITG shade (immune to forced movement and immob, stun daze fear only interrupt but dont disable, chill cripple work normally) would be massive and all of these features are in game code already, sadly on historical and npcs. If someone with dev connections could just point it out we would have viable tank and cc builds.

Either way Unholy Martyr seems like the only trait that they made with actual consideration with what necros can/cant do and what they need/dont need.

What’s with these traits that don’t work together?

A 30 point trait that doesn’t work with the class mechanic is embarrassing. The best one of these traits is path of corruption, and then only because it frees up a skill slot in pvp.

Power necro is one of the most fun things in this game. How come it is always nerfed?

Am i the only one who finds the new traits not that bad?
Though some of the new gm traits may need a number adjustment or some swapping but it is difficult to say without testing them.